Heavy Metal Ion Implantation

Heavy Metal Ion Implantation

Surface Engineering Technologies LLC is pleased to announce development of a new type of surface treatment known as Heavy Metal Ion Implantation which significantly increases fatigue life, hardness, toughness, and tensile strength of most materials.

This process improves parts by taking individual metal ions and accelerating them to approximately 1/500 the speed of light (600km/s or .002c). Once accelerated, the ions collide with the part being implanted, embedding themselves up to a micron (40 millionths of an inch) into the surface. This impact shifts the crystalline structure of the solid to put compressive stress on any micro-crack imperfections or dislocations in the material and stops these defects from propagating. The area of effect of this compressive locking is up to 100 microns (4 thousands of an inch). When this process is completed, any micro-cracks which propagate must work their way through this compressive force as well as the improved grain boundary altered by the implanted ions.

Since all part failures begin as micro-crack dislocations in a material, the results are huge increases in part life. By implanting specific elements we can also add corrosion resistance and other specific material properties. SET’s process can implant ions of any metal on the periodic table from Carbon to Uranium (popular ones include Chromium, Titanium, Molybdenum and Tungsten).

This process can currently accommodate any part under 4 ft by 2 ft and, because it are not a coating, there is no dimensional change. Results have typically been around 300% improvement in use full life for most heavy use cutting tools (hobbs, endmills, bandsaws) but on lower stress application such as gears we have seen improvements from 10 to 25 times.

Surface Engineering Technologies can implant into nearly any solid material, such as ceramic, metal, carbide, even plastic. Set engineers are continuing to advance this one-of-a-kind process with new research and development. SET is also capable of processing production runs.